Political and Social Approaches To Local Economic Development
There are two problems that are often encountered in academic literature in regards to the terminology used. The first problem is that the same term is sometimes used with slightly (or considerably) different meanings, making it hard to follow just what is being meant until a certain familiarity with the concepts is reached and such subtleties (or errors) in usage can be ascertained from the contest.
The second problem arises from a tendency of some academics to want to "own " a concept or subtle differentiation of meaning within a knowledge area or "discipline". In order to differentiate this new distinction, a new term is sometimes coined, even though the subtleties in difference of meaning would elude all but the most highly specialized readers. An example was given to me recently. Such a person might say "we will call it "para-natural" because you are familiar with "para-normal" and you are familiar with "super-natural" so we will call this "para natural".
When one considers the matter of social and political insights, which might render new approaches to boosting a local economy, one runs into a bit of this problem of terminology. Not to worry, it's not that big a deal.
The second of the two areas in this section to be considered is the most straightforward, in that it considers the issues of race, class and culture as they apply to local economic development. It also gives a clue to the matter under consideration in the first section, "political economy" (one of those unnecessarily confusing little labels). It is used in several ways:
- In some contexts the term is simply used as a nick-name for "economics" (which itself is a label for the arrangements a particular people have set up to meet their material needs over time).
- In some contexts its use is meant to draw attention to the fact that economics does not exist in a vacuum and operate automatically guided by some mysterious unseen hand, but rather is it is a system of man-made institutions designed to meet a people's material needs over time, and is therefore constantly mixed up in man's political activities.
- Often, the term is used to refer to a "leftist", "socialist", "communist" or "anything-but-neo-classical- economic-theory-ist". This use arises because the non-neo-classical economists are the ones who regard the political activities of man to be the forces that move things along in an economy, whereas the neo-classical economists view such forces as somehow acting on their own, outside the actions of man.
- Then again the term is sometimes used for any political activity (formal or informal) which has to do with the allocation of money or resources so as to attend to the material needs of man over time.
It is pretty obvious that such subtle changes in usage are not really all that important. Suffice it to say, that the term political economy when used here simply refers to the fact that we are considering the types of approaches and issues which involve the interactions of people trying to persuade other people to accept their point of view in money matters, so as to develop their local economy.
Such interchanges between people necessarily involve issues of race, class and culture. If such issues are major factors in a local situation, this section might hold suggestions and leads as to how to best to proceed .
Links leading to the two relevant sections appear below.
Political and Social Approaches
- The Political Economy Approach to Local Economic Development
- Race and Class Based Approaches To Developing the Local Economy
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